Month: July 2012

I downloaded this Ted Talk by Regina Dugan on a whim, unsure what it’d really cover since the given title is a bit ambiguous. I must say, once it was finished I put it as one of my top favorite talks.

At the time of the talk Regina Dugan was working as the Director of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) which is a government agency but pretty awesome nonetheless. She talks about the agency’s ability to break Mach 20 when just a hundred years ago top scientists said flight was impossible; how humans can control robots with their minds; how metals lighter than a dandelion can change transportation.

The message of the talk is to communicate what is technologically possible when failure, especially the fear of failure, is not a option.

Regina Dugan is now an executive at Google. I wonder, is that upward mobility? I think of the Founder’s Fund Manifesto: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” Without sounding like I want all innovators working for government agency’s (that’d be counterproductive, but check this out http://bit.ly/xjWQCz), I hope these innovators and the “nerds” Regina Dugan talks about in this talk don’t avoid real technological innovation in order to work on making Gmail more cozy looking.

Recently I’ve gone Paleo. The premise: a diet void of wheat and sugar. What this leaves me to eat then is meat, fish, veggies, and fruit. The idea of the diet, true to its name, is to eat as humans did in the paleolithic era. It is based on the belief that human gastronomy has not truly evolved to tolerate wheat based and other refined foods.

The Paleo diet has finally begun gaining popularity over the past couple years (despite being the diet we as humans lived on for tens of thousands of years) and there are many great books, blogs, and websites dedicated to eating paleo. This post and the ones to follow, however, aren’t concerned with the science or promotion of the diet. Instead, it is about introducing a new, healthy meal each week that fits into the Paleo diet. It might be something I made myself or just encountered on the street. So whether you eat paleo or just like to experiment with the food you put into your body, I hope you find something interesting here.

This Week’s Meal: Liver, Bacon Stir Fry.

Not many people enjoy liver. But everyone loves bacon. I made this with a lot of bacon plus veggies, delicious herbs and other ingredients. Not to necessarily cover up the liver flavor but to add to it.I got to say this meal converted me into a liver lover and I can’t wait to make it again (I’ve heard lemon juice is good). The meal is packed with vitamins like K, A, C, B, and E and minerals like potassium, selenium, copper, and zinc. And plenty of protein baby.

Difficulty (3/5) Time (20 mins) Taste (4/5) Health (5/5)

Ingredients:

Fresh Beef Liver

Bacon

Chopped Onions

Mushrooms

Spinach

Baby Tomatoes

White Cooking Wine

Parsley Flakes

Ground Garlic

*Before I started this meal I put some burgers on the grill for my brothers. I wanted to see how long this meal took to make compared to making the average dinner of burgers and dogs. We’ll see.

Go ahead and fry 5 to 6 slices of bacon in a skillet.

Chop up the onions, mushrooms and baby tomatoes. Throw the pieces into a bowl with the washed spinach.

Cut the liver with a very sharp blade (it’s pretty stretchy) into slim slices.

Once the bacon has filled the room with its tasty aroma toss the slices into the bowl of veggies and put a lid on it. Be sure to take the bacon off just a little early. You’ll be putting it back on the skillet later.

Put the liver slices into the still cooking bacon grease. Oh yes. Liver cooks pretty quick so watch over it. Let each side cook through and absorb the grease. Even if you’ve always hated liver you’ll want to eat this right away. But wait.

As the liver finishes cooking, toss the contents of the bowl into the skillet.

Sprinkle the parsley, garlic and any other herbs you’re a fan of.

Pour about two ounces of the cooking wine over the whole mess.

Place a lid over the pile of goodness and put the heat on low, allowing the veggies to steam a bit and absorb the juices.

After a few minutes stir it all around, frying the veggies fully in the bacon and liver.

Pour on a plate and eat.

*As I said, I cooked this meal while there were burgers and dogs on the grill. In the time it took to prepare the burgers I cooked the bacon, chopped the veggies, sliced the liver and had the whole thing on my plate. Worth it.

Neon lights and a row of transparent glass booths. At first glance the upstairs of Bar 89 in SoHo reminds one of Amsterdam’s Red Light District. There is nothing to see, however, when these stalls are occupied. Each door is made of privacy glass using liquid crystals to turn the doors opaque after entering. The unconventional doors are not all this bathroom offers. The dim neon lights unique to each stall are warming and easy on the eyes and the industrial minimalist design of the fixtures appropriately suits the bathroom’s overall theme.

The aesthetics of this little washroom in TriBeCa give a nod to the past. Fashioned out of an antique cage elevator with a railroad car sink basin for a fixture, the bathroom suggest the utilitarian style of a bygone era without abandoning its intricacies.